When we purchased more than a dozen lavender plants last spring, we chose one that was touted as a superb culinary lavender (Lavandula angustiolia Buena Vista) and placed it in a container, the way I usually prefer to grow herbs. The stems are not as long, but the buds are supposed to have better flavor. I love having it near the patio table, where it still looks pretty and I can walk by and rub my fingers on the leaves or buds anytime to enjoy the scent.

Culinary lavender is a perfect container plant near your kitchen.

I’ve seen plenty of recipes for lavender, usually in pastries. The only one I’ve tried so far (and loved!) is a lavender potato salad I’ve adapted from the book “Lavender: How to Grow and Use the Fragrant Herb” (Stackpole Books) by Ellen Spector Platt. By the way, this is our go-to source for growing and harvesting lavender. We combine some of the book’s information with local sources because of our differences in zone and water. Other than that, Ellen knows lavender! And the book has several recipes I plan to try.

This herb stripper makes it easier to strip fresh lavender buds from stems. If dried, you can roll the buds between your fingers.

To me, lavender is the most versatile of all herbs, right up there with its close relative, rosemary. If you don’t have one of the culinary varieties, it’s a great plant to add to your garden. But I made this recipe several times before we got this plant, and it tasted great! So try it with any lavender.

The best gardeners learn by trial and error. If you think about it, medical and scientific discoveries occur because of experimentation. So a gardener who gets it right every time is either extremely experienced, experienced and the holder of a horticultural degree, or a liar.

And that’s why you should never give up on gardening because of a mistake or two, or several. You just learn from them and move on. Sure, some mistakes are more costly or frustrating. And some are avoidable in hindsight. Especially if you are impatient. Even more so if you are impatient and stubborn.

Here’s my latest: I have a couple of Smart Pots, which are soft, fabric containers that are lighter than pots and can be folded up for storage. I decided to grow a zucchini in my larger one, even though I knew I might be pushing the limits of the flexible pot’s size, and more importantly, the plant. Experimentation is good. Stubbornness can have negative consequences.

I’ve since thinned these three seedlings to one plant. See, who would have thought such a tiny seed would eventually grow into such a large plant? Oh, I know! Any fool who has ever grown squash before.

One of the other excellent qualities of Smart Pots is that they provide aeration for plants. In a typical hard, clay container, the roots might grow out to the side or bottom and then begin circling, looking for a place to go. This can harm the growth and health of the plant. When the roots come up against the Smart Pot edge, they can penetrate it or the pot “air prunes” the roots, helping them to form lateral branches.

One reason I placed the zucchini in the pot was so the plant would be lifted off the ground and I could reach the fruit better. I always itch reaching in to harvest or look for weeds and bugs. I’ve had no weeds with it in a container, and it’s easier to harvest the fruit. The other reason was that I could easily shift the plant’s position in my garden should I alter the plan.

I decided the zucchini was too crowded between two tomato plants and needed moving. Feeling quite brilliant for using a lightweight, mobile container, I decided I could move it myself! But I failed to take into account or simply forgot that the plant had grown large enough that the roots might have penetrated the bottom of the Smart Pot. And being impatient, mostly because it was stinking hot, I drug the pot to a new spot in the garden. I felt pretty smart myself.

In this case, the pot outsmarted the gardener. That’s because the gardener disturbed the plant’s nice, healthy roots by moving the pot without thinking.

Later than day, I made my noon visit to the garden. Immediately, I noticed that the zucchini plant’s leaves looked like they’d been beaten. It was wilting miserably. It didn’t take us long (OK, I have to give Tim credit for thinking of it first) to figure out that when I moved the pot, I broke off a few roots. Not very many had grown through, or I would have felt resistance when I moved the pot. I’m not blaming the Smart Pot; I’m blaming the impatient, absent-minded gardener who should have left well enough alone. All of those plants were doing fine until I messed with one of them, although the zucchini is way large at the top of the pot. We carried the plant into the shade of the shed (at least that was easy) and gave it a good drink of water.

The shed in the background provided overnight shelter. We have a makeshift shade cloth over the south side of the plant until further notice.

We left the plant in the shed overnight – it got airflow, but was protected from the elements and hungry critters. Then, we returned it to the garden the next day and rigged a shade cloth of sorts to help protect it from the heat until it can (hopefully) recover from my interference. So far, it’s looking better.

Lessons learned: Don’t overgarden; be patient. The plants may have grown too close together eventually, but they hadn’t yet. And read product directions, then remember them!

A month ago, I talked about how strategic use of rocks and other natural hardscaping could add interest to your xeric garden. Another strategy, and a fun activity, is careful placement of art in the xeric garden.

This sundial, a gift from family, has a prominent spot in our rock garden.

With small objects of art, you can treat your garden like a canvas to add focal points of interest for times when plants are not blooming, to bring the eye up or down as a complement to plant height, to add pops of color or movement, or just to add some fun and whimsy.

The snail is an offering, but hasn’t convinced the real crawlers to move on! The wind spinner adds movement, sometimes lots of it!

Although many of the objects in our garden have been gifts from family members, we also have enjoyed picking up a few pieces of art when traveling. That way, we have a souvenir from our trip, and we get to see it nearly every day in one of our favorite places.

Of course, there is some magnificent art you can purchase, such as fountains carved from natural stone. And you will see excellent specimens in your favorite home design and fine gardening magazines. If you have a tighter budget and like to collect your own small objects, it’s really a matter of personal taste when deciding what goes into your garden. And although I am not a landscape designer, here are a few tips:

For xeric gardens, art made from natural materials typically fits in better. Objects made from metal, wood or stone and with earthy finishes usually fit into the flow better. However, a few bursts of color can really add to the garden’s palette. For example, there is a piece of garden sculpture at one of our favorite shops in nearby Cloudcroft, N.M., called Off the Beaten Path, that I’m coveting. It’s an army helmet made into a bright red ladybug. And one of these days, it will have a place of honor among the green of our garden. Unless they sell them all before I can get one!

These birdhouses, both gifts painted by family members, add pops of color around our redbud that we can see from a distance.

With color or garden art in general, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. In other words, I have seen it overdone. Still, if you get joy from collecting or making garden art, then go for it. After all, this is your garden, your sanctuary.

When placing art, consider plants’ growth. If you have a large object that you can’t easily move, be sure not to place it so close to a small shrub that the art eventually disappears. I’ve pulled up plenty of annuals and weeds because they choked out a favorite little sculpture.

Our little stone and metal ant is being overrun by annuals that popped up around him. I need to move him or clean up so he can be seen.

We won’t burn anything in this mini-chiminea, but I do want to try growing a shade-loving plant in it.

Really, the sky’s the limit, especially if you are into repurposing old items. A larger garden can hold a recycled gate or window with your own idea for a stained glass design added by a local artist, or you can create a small bottle tree.

With strategically placed garden art, you can add year-round interest to your xeric garden without the need to add more or larger plantings.

My basil isn’t perfect; I think I can blame mostly grasshoppers. But with all of the bugs around here and the cloudy, damp weather of late, it’s really a toss-up. I’ll stick with grasshoppers and snails for now, because I dislike them the most. Next year, I will definitely cover the basil plants with white row fabric.

Basil is pretty even when it’s not perfect. And the scent! These are the leaves left after I cut off sets for pesto.

Still, the plants grew, and some of the stalks were about to flower. Time to harvest! A neighbor, who shares a portion of her land to host a wonderful community garden, pointed us to some information on harvesting basil. I realized I have always been too shy about harvesting, taking too few leaves. Instead, it’s best to take the top few sets of leaves, above the second set of leaves from the soil. That assumes, of course, that the plant has at least three to five sets of leaves. If so, the sturdy topping should help the plant generate new growth.

I picked off and rinsed the leaves and dried them in a salad spinner and then on paper towels, choosing not to use some that were really chewed up. Then, I chilled them in the refrigerator until that evening. Even with some bug destruction, I got a good cup of basil leaves from one larger plant and two small ones. Then, I made pesto. And it was really easy. I modified a recipe I found online a few years ago and then used it right away to make dinner.

Pesto pasta with chicken and garden zucchini. Other than the tomatoes and pasta (OK, and the chicken), this is all garden to table. And I hope to have tomatoes to add to my lettuce and carrots soon!

Take a look at the recipe below, and feel free to print or Pin it. And adjust it as necessary. I didn’t use a lot of garlic, so it’s all a matter of personal taste. After making the pesto, I whipped up a quick dinner of pasta with a chopped chicken breast and our first zucchini of the season, sautéing both in olive oil. I just added about a cup (measured raw) of cooked pasta to the skillet and a heaping tablespoon or so of pesto. The rest of the pesto went in the freezer!

Place washed and dried basil leaves, garlic and pine nuts in a food processor. Pulse ingredients until coarsely chopped. Add a portion of the olive oil, processing the mixture until all ingredients are incorporated and the mixture is smooth. Season as desired with salt and pepper.

If using the pesto immediately, add the remaining oil and pulse until the mixture is smooth. Scrape into a serving bowl and add parmesan cheese.

If freezing, do not add the Parmesan cheese. Place in an airtight container and pour remaining oil over top of pesto. It will freeze for up to three months. Stir in 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese after thawing.

In several posts, I’ve reiterated how important it is to water slowly and deeply, especially for vegetables and xeric plants. Just last week, I touted the benefits of drip irrigation as a way to accomplish deep watering and ensure that you water under plants, not over them.

I babbled so much about drip irrigation that the folks at Garden Drip System by Thombo offered to send me a free Garden Drip hose (tape) to test. The drip hose differs from typical soaker hoses in its material. Instead of the heavier, rubber-like round tubing, the drip hose comes as flat plastic tape. In fact, the company mailed it to me in a small padded envelope, not a box.

The Garden Drip Hose rolls up to a compact size, so it’s small and light for shipping, storing and lugging around.

Different from soaker hoses

The drip tape material is lightweight and compact. That helped when I lugged it back and forth to try it in a few places. It didn’t take long for the rolls from packaging to completely flatten (as opposed to a regular hose I purchased recently, which keeps coiling around my leg, kinking and knocking into my delicate bean plants!)

Anyway, back to the Garden Drip. The tape is designed so that a tiny hole emits drips of water about every foot. That’s another way in which it differs from a soaker hose, which basically is scored all the way down its length. Having said that, you can control where the emitters go to some extent, but you still will get some drip between plants if you have wells rather than rows. The tape is designed to only curve slightly, not make intricate curves and 90-degree turns around a garden. The in-between drips were not a big deal, though, because the soaking is so slow and steady that I had no pooled water anywhere.

Tiny holes emit drips of water from the striped top of the tape, making installation super easy and the flow nice and slow.

Little pressure needed

I laid out the drip tape to water some vegetables and roses near my house and set my phone timer for four hours. It was nice to work while I watered. The pressure was terrific once I easily spotted and flattened any slight twists in the hose. Once the tape is in place, it’s unobtrusive. The polyethylene tape should stand up to beating sun better than traditional soaker hoses. I imagine you could easily place a few stakes along its path to keep it secure, but it would be best to do so while it’s running. That’s because the tape looks flat when it arrives and you first lay it out, but the shape rounded out as soon as I added water to the tape, filling it all the way to the end of the 50 feet.

The thin strip of tape fit nicely under the zucchini plant and was flexible enough to curve slightly with the beds.

Speaking of pressure, I wanted to test the hose with my rain barrel, but the only barrel I have with a good hose connection is too far from my garden, so it’s unfair to readers and Garden Drip to say how it works with a 50-foot hose between the barrel and the 50-foot drip tape, not to mention a fairly inexpensive barrel and a barely downhill slope. I would suggest the shortest possible length if you want to try it with a barrel, simply because you don’t have any mechanical pressure like you will from a faucet.

I hooked the tape up to my hose for the best possible pressure in a location too far from barrels with faucets. They were simple to connect.

The Garden Drip comes in lengths of 25, 50, 75 and 100 feet. And if you watch the company’s videos, you can get fancy with shortening, repairing and customizing the hose.

Bottom line: This is the perfect way to water rows of home garden and small farm crops. It is slow and steady as promised, lightweight and effective at drip irrigation and saving water. It won’t work as well as a custom drip system for a xeric garden with plants scattered around, but if you’ve got some fairly straight rows or beds to water, this is the way to go! You can irrigate less often and more efficiently, saving water and helping your plants’ roots become more healthy.

If one of your concerns about xeriscaping is that your garden will look as barren as the Southwest desert, it only takes a little planning and time to ensure you have some color and texture from spring to fall. Of course, that’s easy if you have unlimited water and time.

I can’t resist the urge to showcase New Mexico sites and landscapes, even when discussing barren deserts. This is a hilltop outside Alamogordo, N.M., with a view of the White Sands in the distance.

But it’s also entirely possible and relatively simple to have continuous color using low-water plants. Here are a few suggestions:

Don’t give up on bulbs. Although you would think they use lots of water, they’re like the camels of the plant world, adapted or bred to store water and energy in their roots, stems or leaves. They also do best in well-draining soil. I’m lumping corms, tubers and rhizomes with true bulbs. Spring-flowering bulbs should need no water other than rain after established unless you have a really long dry spell, especially during growth and flowering. As long as you choose varieties recommended for your area and follow care guides for placement, mulching and dividing, you should be able to add bulbs to your xeric garden as desired. I love how iris and tulips bloom early as a sign of spring.

Iris provide spring color with little to no extra water or work.

Day lily blooms only last one day, but bloom in early summer. We found out they bloom closer to July 1 in our slightly cooler zone.

Choose one or two continuous, or nearly continuous, bloomers. I don’t know how a small shrub, especially a xeric one, can bloom in the late spring or early summer and hold those blooms all season. But I think the easiest way to plan a small xeric garden is to select one continuous bloomer you like, then build around it. For example, santolina usually blooms all summer, after one trim or shearing back in the spring. Since it has yellow flowers, you can then decide how you’d like to complement the low spreading shrub with other colors throughout the summer. By the way, it’s also evergreen, so you can consider how to complement the gray (silvery foliage) or green santolina with another evergreen or some hardscaping for winter interest. Other examples, depending on your zone, are gaura (Gaura linheimeri) or most salvias, though some might require deadheading.

Try a groundcover. You don’t have to replace your entire lawn with a groundcover, but you can add color with some well-placed xeric planting. Several thyme varieties require no water at all and are terrific at filling in spaces between pavers, rocks or stepping stones. You’ll get some green and tiny purple flowers when they bloom. A groundcover also can cool the roots of other plants that need a little help to survive hot summer days. Just remember that they spread, especially if you overwater them.

This groundcover is spreading in several areas this summer and sending up stalks with tiny lavender-colored flowers. I think it is a speedwell.

Supplement with a few annual seeds or containers. Satisfy your desire for early color and bloom variety each year with some annuals. Seeds are inexpensive, but are a little more water and time intensive. Or fill a designated area of your patio, deck or garden with a few containers with pops of color from annual bedding plants. You can decide when the color appears and what colors you want to complement your perennial blooms. Seeds sowed as soon as the ground warms will bloom later than many of your perennials. And many annuals continue blooming with or without pinching and deadheading. I love petunias in containers because they spread with little effort on my part and need no deadheading, just pinching off of spent buds every now and then to look their best.

Petunias are so simple in beds or containers. They spread with little water or attention.

It can be a lot of work to deadhead continuously. So it’s probably good to limit the number of annuals that need regular trimming of blooms to force new ones. But some xeric plants such as lavender and salvias will bloom a second time with one trim following the first bloom, so you get a late, bonus wave of color.

Some plants give you plenty of hints (Autumn sedum booms in fall!). But if you have limited space and experience, a xeric landscape designer can help you select the fewest plants possible for continuous bloom.

Your garden is prepped and you plant a row of carrot seeds or several cucumber seeds, just to be safe.You’re thrilled when you get a nearly 100 percent germination rate. Wow, you must be good! Or in my case, lucky. As I beam with pride, I know that the next step is to thin the seedlings. But sometimes, I fail to heed my own advice or that of horticulturalists. This year, I am trying to do a better job of thinning some of my vegetables. Baby steps…

This head lettuce is lined up nicely, but it’s still a little closer together than recommended. Of course, I can cut and enjoy it anytime — before the plants get too close.

First, let’s look at the reasons why thinning helps your crops and yield, and even improves the health of flowers you start as seeds in your garden:

A plant can only provide so much energy to the leaves, stems and fruit. If your aim is to get as many health, juicy tomatoes as possible, then most expert gardeners recommend pruning suckers from indeterminate, or vining, tomatoes. We often trim a few lower branches too, especially if they’re touching the ground.

The same goes for some fruit trees, though I’ve seen some advice that says not to bother too much with thinning unless it’s obvious that a small branch can’t handle the number of budding apples or pears. And clearly, a home gardener is probably safer letting nature and birds take care of thinning out fruit from upper branches! We chose not to thin our cherry tree and it handled the fruit just fine. The birds helped out more than I would have liked, but there were several bunches of six or more cherries on one spur and most of the tree’s fruit ripened fine.

These cherries were nearly ready to pick and growing fine in a large bunch.

With vegetables planted in groups or rows, such as carrots or lettuce, thinning is more to avoid overcrowding. The plants’ roots need space to grow underground – especially true of root vegetables. If crowded, the roots might not support full, healthy growth. And above ground, the leaves need air circulation and sun. Crowded plants hide bugs and hold water on their leaves. It’s like being squashed up in bleachers at a baseball game. Aren’t you more comfortable sitting out on the grass (or in one of those chairs with a cupholder), with the wind blowing through your hair?

I had to do a second thinning on the carrots in this container. They are way too crowded.

OK, still closer than the recommended two inches in a few spots, but closer. I’ll add a few of the tiny ones pulled up to my next salad.

I’ll add another reason to thin that I can more easily relate to. If I feel like pulling up seedlings that made it is wasteful, I have to look at continually watering seedlings I eventually have to thin out – or even worse, plants that grow to nearly mature height and then need pulling up because of a disease or just provide a low yield – as wasting water. It’s not right to let that plant continue soaking up water that could be put to better use.

These green bean seedlings are just about right. They can be four to six inches apart, since most of the growth — and the beans — vine up above the plant.

So, what can you do with seedlings so that you don’t feel like you’re wasting a viable plant, small as it may be? The little survivor, that broke through the soil and bore leaves? If the flower or vegetable is one that transplants well, you can move it to another spot, or try it in a container. Lettuce seedlings and carrot seedlings from a second thinning are often large enough to eat, even if they’re mostly garnish on your salad.

Of course, you can also compost the plants you thin and leaves or suckers you prune. When thinning, take care not to pull up the root of an adjacent plant. It helps to thin when the soil is damp and to avoid procrastinating until plants are large and closer together.

Roses are old-fashioned favorites that often remind gardeners of their mothers or grandmothers or of lush gardens in the South, where both water and sun were readily available from nature. But I see fewer roses in gardens now, partly because they’re associated with lots of patience and care, and partly because some of the hybrid roses need more water than a low-water garden can – and should – provide. It’s also strange to picture a tall, hybrid tea rose in the middle of a xeric landscape, although a good landscape designer can always work a small rose garden into your plan if that’s what you desire.

Friends brought us this floribunda as a housewarming gift and it fits nicely in our xeric rose garden. We watered it the first year, but only a little this spring.

Many shrub-size roses fit in nicely with the look and purpose of a low-water garden. So you can have the scent and many other features of roses, as long as you’re willing to choose the right type of rose. Here are a few to consider:

Species roses. A species rose is basically a wild rose. Several species roses have grown to adapt to drought and other extreme conditions. I have several in my rose garden area, and I know one of them is a Wood’s rose (Rosa Woodsii). It can grow to at least 10 feet and has beautiful pink flowers, followed by hips all fall and winter, which the birds love. Another is a shorter, shrub-style rose that I believe is the Prairie rose (Rosa blanda), with pink flowers that fade to white in the center. The other has deep red flowers. Both have in common large, plentiful thorns and bunches of two-inch flowers in late spring.

Close-up of a Wood’s rose bloom. They’re small, but abundant on the plant’s long canes.

The wild Rosa blanda is only about 18 inches tall.

Native roses. In New Mexico and other Southwestern states, the Arizona Rosewood (Vauquelina californica), which resembles an evergreen oleander in its foliage and shape, or the Apache Plume (Fallugia paradoxica) both have delicate white flowers that resemble roses. The native plants have adapted to the Southwest and attract bees.

This Apache plume (with the Wood’s rose in left background) got too dense and full. They are so easy to care for and forgiving when pruned.

Shrubs and groundcovers. Some hybrid roses have been adapted to grow as smaller shrubs and groundcovers. They’ll use less water and take up less space in the landscape. In general, they need less care than other rose types, but have long bloom periods.

Flower Carpet Red from Tesselaar is a spreading groundcover rose that reaches no more than 32 inches high. It’s drought tolerant once established and hardy down to zone 5. Image courtesy of Tesselaar.

In fact, species, native and certain shrub or groundcover roses are all typically easier to care for and relatively disease free. Just give them mostly sun and prune according to recommendations once in early spring. You don’t have to continuously dead-head blooms, and they have adapted to lower water and the changing conditions of high deserts and mountains, so having them in your garden is more water wise. But there are a few disadvantages. The species roses are wild, which means they can sprout new canes or offshoots. The yellow one in our garden has gotten too thick and large, and will need serious pruning next spring; it’s sort of taken over the area and is shading some other plants too much.

Our rosa blanda, red species rose and taller yellow species rose to the right. It blooms earlier than the others, so we have color from early May through September.

Another disadvantage is that if you love to cut long rose stems to use the blooms in flower arrangements, you won’t enjoy these varieties as much as hybrid tea roses; their stems are typically shorter. However, if you want to walk or sit next to them in your garden and stop to smell them, or simply enjoy the beauty of the plant and blooms, you can have your roses and save water too!

For water conservation and plant health, the smartest xeric strategy is to water the roots of the plant and avoid watering the plant’s leaves.

Let’s look at the water savings first: Water evaporates when exposed to air, and occurs at the water surface area. The smaller a drop of water, the higher the percentage of the drop’s surface area. Add the effect of wind on tiny drops of water from sprinklers and you might as well just pour that water down the drain. And if you irrigate a plant from above or with sprinklers and spray emitters, much of the water lands on the leaves, where it can evaporate. In fact, water constantly evaporates from a plant’s leaves as it is, in a process called transpiration. It’s a plant’s natural way of cooling off on hot summer days.

Cascading or spraying water is for fountains and lawns, not for plants. Note at least three inconspicuous, but efficient, drip emitters in this herb garden.

Feed a plant’s roots

It’s much better for a plant to take new water in through the plant’s roots, where the water picks up soil nutrients and works its way up the trunk and stems back to the leaves to do its cooling and feeding work. There’s another reason not to spray water on plant leaves, especially late in the day or during cloudy, humid weather: wet leaves can harm many plants.

Fungal diseases such as powdery mildew on roses or apple scab on apple trees and crabapples is partly a result of water on the leaves. Sometimes, there is nothing a gardener can do. We have an old pear tree with some scab that likely came from spores in old leaves left on the ground and a week or more of cool, cloudy and humid weather in late spring.

We don’t water this old tree near the river, but an unusually cool and damp late spring caused this brown spotting, which I believe is pear scab. It was worse on lower leaves on the northeast side of the tree, but seems to have stopped progressing. And the young pears don’t look too bad!

Change how you irrigate

Often, simply changing irrigation practices can improve a plant’s health. When we first moved to a home in Albuquerque many years ago, the previous owner had installed sprayheads in all of the flowerbeds. We eventually had to replace all of them with bubblers and rework the plantings. Bubblers or drip irrigation might have required a little more planning, better leveling of the soil and more parts or emitters. But in the end, the homeowner would have saved money on his water bill and I bet on plants! Farmers know this is the way to go, and many are learning new ways to improve irrigation techniques to reduce water use.

A micro subsurface drip irrigation system was used in this demonstration project in Texas. Click on the image, which is courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to learn more about the project.

We recently visited a nursery in search of tomato cages and noted that the tomato plants they still had in stock looked awful, even though they had a few large fruits on the plants. I thought at first it was too shaded in the greenhouse, but then Tim noticed the cause: an overhead spray watering system. The leaves were spotted and nearly goldish-brown in color. I don’t know how they are healthy enough to continue feeding the plants. Granted, these plants have been in the greenhouse way past the typical time, and there are many more than you would have to deal with in your garden. Still, it seems to me they would sell more tomato plants if they watered differently.

Roses are especially vulnerable to powdery mildew and need deep watering at the roots. The only time I spray roses is to rid them of aphids. I use a fairly strong water spray early on a sunny day.

And in case I haven’t convinced you, here’s yet another reason to water with drip emitters or by hand near the roots of a plant instead of broadcast or spray irrigation: weeds. When you spray water, you water everything around, including weed seeds. Watering only around your vegetables’ or ornamentals’ roots confines weed growth, making it easier to pick small weeds out by hand.

It takes more time to water my vegetable garden by hand, but the hose from our rain barrel waters the plants deeply and just at the roots while I weed.

As I said before, you can’t control rain, which obviously comes from overhead. But keeping plants exposed to proper sun, trimmed and cleared to give them sun and airflow and cleaning out debris from around the bottom of trees and plants can help reduce risk of fungal diseases. Choose mulches carefully, depending on local recommendations for a given plant.